other nations be deceived by the sophistry of courts -Ireland has studied politics in the lair of oppression; and, taught by suffering, comprehends the right of subjects, and the duty of kings. Let other nations imagine that subjects are made for the Monarch; but we conceive, that Kings, and Parliaments like Kings, are made for the subject. The House of Commons, honourable and right honourable as it may be the Lords, noble and illustrious as we pronounce them, are not original, but derivative. Session after session they move their periodical orbit about the source of their being-the nation-even the King-Majesty-must fulfil her due and tributary course round that great luminary; and created by its beam, and upheld by its attraction, must incline to that light, or go out of the system.

Ministers, we mean the ministers who have been dismissed; I rely on the good intentions of the present, former ministers, I say, have put questions to us-we beg to put questions to them. They desired to know by what authority this nation had acted— this nation desires to know by what authority they acted? By what authority did government enforce the articles of war? By what authority does government establish the Post-office? By what authority are our merchants bound by the East-India Company's charter? By what authority has Ireland one hundred years been deprived of her export trade? By

what authority are her Peers deprived of their judicature? By what authority has that judicature been transferred to the Peers of Great Britain, and our property, in its last resort, referred to the decision of a non-resident unauthorized, illegal, and unconstitutional tribunal?, Will ministers say, it was the authority of the British Parliament. On what ground, then, do they place the question between the government on one side, and the people on the other? The government, according to their own statement, has been occupied to supersede the law-giver of the country, and the people to restore him. His Majesty's late ministers thought they had quelled the country, when they bought the newspapers, and they represented us as wild men, and our cause as visionary; and they pensioned a set of wretches to abuse both; but we took little account of them, or their proceedings, and we waited, and we watched, and we moved, as it were, on our native hills, with the minor remains of our parliamentary army, until that minority became Ireland. Let those ministers now go home, and congratulate their King on the deliverance of his people. Did you imagine, that those little parties, whom, three years ago, you beheld in awkward squads parading the streets, should arrive to such distinction and effect? What was the cause? For it was not the sword of the volunteer, nor his muster, nor his spirit, nor his promptitude to put down accidental disturbance, public discord,

nor his own unblamed and distinguished deportment: this was much; but there was more than this. The upper orders, the property and the abilities of the country, formed with the volunteer; and the volunteer had sense enough to obey them. This united the Protestant with the Catholic, and the landed proprietor with the people. There was still more than this-there was a continence which confined the corps to limited and legitimate objects. There was a principle which principle which preserved the corps from adultery with French politics. There was a good taste, which guarded the corps from the affectation of such folly. This, all this, made them bold; for it kept them innocent, it kept them rational. No vulgar rant against England, no mysterious admiration of France, no crime to conceal, no folly to blush for, they were what they professed to be; and that was nothing less than the society asserting her liberty according to the frame of the British constitution-her inheritance to be enjoyed in perpetual connection with the British Empire. I do not mean to say, that there were not divers violent and unseemly resolutions. The immensity of the means was inseparable from the excess. Such are the great works of nature-such is the sea; but, like the sea, the waste and excess were lost in the immensity of its blessings, benefits, and advantage; and now, having given a parliament to the people, the volunteers will, I doubt not, leave the people to parliament,

and thus close, pacifically and majestically a great work, which will place them above censure, and above panegyric. Those associations, like other institutions, will perish: they will perish with the occasion that gave them being; and the gratitude of their country will write their Epitaph

"This phænomenon, the departed Volunteer, jus"tified by the occasion, with some allay of public " evil, did more public good to Ireland than all her "institutions. He restored the liberties of his coun"try; and thus, from his grave, he answers his ene"mies."

Connected by freedom, as well as by allegiance, the two nations, Great Britain and Ireland, form a constitutional confederacy as well as an empire. The Crown is one link, the Constitution another; and, in my mind, the latter link is the most powerful. You can get a king any where; but England is the only country with whom you can get and participate a free constitution. This makes England your natural connexion, and her King your natural, as well as your legal, sovereign. This is a connexion, not as Lord Coke has idly said, not as Judge Blackstone has foolishly said, not as other Judges have ignorantly said, by conquests; but, as Molyneux has said, and as I now say, by compact,-that compact is, a free constitution.-Suffer me now to state some of the things essential to that free constitution: they are as follows: The independency of the Irish Par

liament-the exclusion of the British Parliament from any authority in this realm-the restoration of the Irish Judicature, and the exclusion of that of Great Britain. As to the perpetual Mutiny Bill, it must be more than limited-it must be effaced. That Bill must fall, or the constitution cannot stand, That Bill was originally limited by this House to two years, and it returned from England without the clause of limitation. What! a Bill making the army independent of parliament, and perpetual? I protested against it then-I have struggled with it since; and I am now come to destroy this great enemy of my country. The perpetual Mutiny Bill must vanish out of the Statute Book. The excellent tract of Molyneux was burned--it was not answered, and its flame illumined posterity. This evil paper shall be burned; but burned like a felon, that its execution may be a peace-offering to the people, and that a Declaration of Right may be planted on its guilty ashes. A new Mutiny Bill must be formed, after the manner of England, and a Declaration of Right flaming in its preamble. As to the legislative powers of the Privy Council, I conceive them to be utterly inadmissible against the constitution, against the privileges of Parliament, and against the dignity of the realm. Do not imagine such power to be a theoretical evil: it is, in a very high degree, a practical evil. I have here an inventory of Bills, altered and injured by the interference of the Privy